About time—Apple now experimenting with a watch-like device

Little is known, but NYT, WSJ both report using anonymous sources.

Apple is experimenting internally with the development of a watch-like device with smartphone capabilities, according to separate reports from The New York Times and Wall Street Journal today.

Details beyond that fact remain murky. The NYT report indicates the watch may "operate on Apple’s iOS platform" and be built with a curved glass surface, leveraging "the company’s understanding of how such glass can curve around the human body." WSJ reports Apple has already talked with manufacturing partner Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. (aka Foxconn) about the idea, and this initiative could be the centerpiece of Apple's next large product group beyond smartphones and tablets.

Both pieces relied entirely on anonymous sourcing from Apple—"according to people briefed on the effort" for WSJ and "according to people familiar with the company’s explorations, who spoke on the condition that they not be named because they are not allowed to publicly discuss unreleased products" for NYT.

If all this pans out, Apple would be primed to break into the emerging wearable computing market. It's an area focused mostly on fitness today, but Apple has shown public interest. The company partnered with Nike on devices like the FuelBand or those iPod-connecting shoes. Apple has also previously partnered with Corning Glass, using the company's Gorilla Glass, so it's not a reach to say finding a use for the stretchable, new Willow Glass could be on Cupertino's agenda.

The lack of on-the-record info didn't stop NYT from speculated on some logical future uses for such a device—mobile payments using Passbook, GPS functionality, Dick Tracy-like communications. If you've got ideas (or better monikers than the already spreading iWatch), let us know below.

Interesting idea. I'm not sure it's something I'd go for, but once I've seen it in action, who knows. Personally, I prefer bigger screens (Galaxy Note and such and I'd rather have a 17" tablet than the sizes they make now), not smaller, but it could be useful, I suppose. They'd need to come up with a way of making it work with such a small screen though: not easy when we're talking about touchscreens.

Interesting idea. I'm not sure it's something I'd go for, but once I've seen it in action, who knows. Personally, I prefer bigger screens (Galaxy Note and such and I'd rather have a 17" tablet than the sizes they make now), not smaller, but it could be useful, I suppose. They'd need to come up with a way of making it work with such a small screen though: not easy when we're talking about touchscreens.

Remember, smart watches are not a primary-use device. They display small blobs of information (time, first few lines of email/SMS/etc, feedback from excersize trackers, etc) in a situationally more convenient form-factor.

I'm not surprised. If you go to the Lounge you can see how excited people are about their Pebble Watch, IMO some sort of Smartwatch will be the next gadget that will explode.

Smartwatches have been around for a while - Timex released one that would control your iPod 6 years ago. Never heard of it? No surprise, it looked like shit.

Watches are basically jewelry, esepcially for men, since they're one of the few forms of male jewelry that's socially acceptable outside certain niches. Outside geek circles I can't see a massive amount of interest in wearing the same watch as everyone else.

I love watches. I love the idea of watches being relevant to people's lives, be it Apple or Pebble or anyone else. That said, the watch on my wrist is going to be mechanical, no batteries, no bluetooth, no notifications or any other nonsense. The old ways are still what wind me up, so to speak.

Phones have largely replaced watches, so I guess it might be time for the watch's big comeback. I still remember back to the time when it was quite an accomplishment to get a calculator in there. The first time I saw one, I was just a kid, and I wanted one. I guess my nerdome was sealed early in life.

Aurich wrote:

I love watches. I love the idea of watches being relevant to people's lives, be it Apple or Pebble or anyone else. That said, the watch on my wrist is going to be mechanical, no batteries, no bluetooth, no notifications or any other nonsense. The old ways are still what wind me up, so to speak.

I can't figure out the use of this device that the iPhone in my pocket doesn't already provide. I don't WANT to go back to the days when I strapped something onto my arm every day. On those rare dressy occasions when it looks right to wear a watch, I want something analog, not a Dick Tracy watch. I'm sure some people would buy these things, but I can't figure out why.

This could just be a new iPod mini. If it's the similar to the last generation device but ergonomically better (ie. curved), and comes with a range of armband accessories (eg. upper arm use for the gym) it is at basic level an incremental update.

Add the capability for the device to interoperate with an iPhone or iPad, though, and you've got a major revision. At the very least, it provides a shot in the arm (pun intended) to the increasingly moribund iPod line. If things work out really well, it fosters a fashion craze. Whichever way you cut it, the thing is a no-brainer.

I think if there's an aftermarket of easy to snap on "frames" that could change to look of the watch from Swatchy to metallic, slick and round-edged to more garish and decorated, tons of colors and patterns, different straps and whatnot that people may be interested. There would have to be some cool functionality, and more importantly - great battery life. Seems like an inevitable device for Apple to explore...

DavidinAla wrote:

I can't figure out the use of this device that the iPhone in my pocket doesn't already provide. I don't WANT to go back to the days when I strapped something onto my arm every day. On those rare dressy occasions when it looks right to wear a watch, I want something analog, not a Dick Tracy watch. I'm sure some people would buy these things, but I can't figure out why.

What's to figure out? I don't see how an iPhone in your pocket is a watch/Bluetooth remote/who-knows-what...

If you were a musician and used your iPhone for recording you could use the watch as a remote. Same for the camera or any camera apps. It's a quick way to see stuff about your iPhone without having to pull it out of your pocket. If you're a jogger and you have it strapped to your bicept for music, you could use the watch for controlling the stopwatch. It really seems like it could be supported by a lot of different apps in a lot of different ways. Seems like a nice remote button no matter what your use is. If you were a hiker, it could be nice to be able to tap your watch to mark points of interest - and if it had a built in Bluetooth mic (unlikely, I guess), then there are tons of possibilities.

Not only is there an issue with the minimal display capabilities, but what kind of battery capacity can you fit in one of these things? Granted, without a significant display you wouldn't need as much, but you still need to keep the radio(s) fed if it's going to function as more than (as others have noted) an iPod mini.

Not seeing the attraction at this point, but then I'm not really an Apple person.

this seems relevant. Pulling my phone out of my pocket, bag, or trying to figure out where I left it, and then hoping it is is charged is an enormous PITA for me. Rather have something with me at all time, in bed, at work, in the pool, on the bus, while driving etc etc.

I'm not surprised. If you go to the Lounge you can see how excited people are about their Pebble Watch, IMO some sort of Smartwatch will be the next gadget that will explode.

Smartwatches have been around for a while - Timex released one that would control your iPod 6 years ago. Never heard of it? No surprise, it looked like shit.

Watches are basically jewelry, esepcially for men, since they're one of the few forms of male jewelry that's socially acceptable outside certain niches. Outside geek circles I can't see a massive amount of interest in wearing the same watch as everyone else.

Tablet PC's have been out since at least the 90's yet they've only become popular in the past few years. Ever heard of Newton? It's only recently that technology has advanced far enough to make a tablet a usable product. Only recently have computers become fast and small enough to fit in a tablet, that battery life has become powerful enough to run a working computer in such small form factor and that screen technology has advanced enough to give us small high resolution screens.

Smart watches are nearing the stage where technology will allow them to prosper. My bet is that Timex watch didn't last a day without needing re-charging, right? The Sony Smartwatch needs to be recharged daily. Watches need to be able to last at least a week, preferably a month between charges. Watches also need to be small, much smaller then cell phones. As soon as a long-lasting small smartwatch appears it'll be the new rage, mark my words.

I love watches. I love the idea of watches being relevant to people's lives, be it Apple or Pebble or anyone else. That said, the watch on my wrist is going to be mechanical, no batteries, no bluetooth, no notifications or any other nonsense. The old ways are still what wind me up, so to speak.

So what do you think of those fancy kinetic and solar watches?

Kinetic watches are just marketing of old tech. My Omega is "kinetic", meaning it has a free spinning rotor that winds my watch from the movement of my arm. This isn't a new thing, but you'd think it was from reading the breathless marketing copy Citizen and their ilk create. Solar is cool, but it tends to mean eletronic watch, and like I said, I prefer mechanical. It's a romantic thing, it's not at all practical. My watch costs orders of magnitude more than a cheap digital you can get in a vending machine, and doesn't even keep time as accurately, so I don't pretend it's at all practical. I just like the notion of the gears and springs.

Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.

I can't help but think of the PIP-boy wrist-mounted computers seen in the Fallout games. But those only served to make the game's menu feel like part of the game. There's no way you're going to use a computer on your wrist to eat food, take medicine, drink water, or take something out of your pocket or backpack and put it in your hand. That's just stupid. The GPS-enhanced map, on the other hand, sure, but I can't help but think Google Glass will do that one better. Apple's priorities are fashion and iTunes integration. The latter is irrelevant, and as to the former, PIP-boy is not fashion forward anywhere except at steampunk and gaming conventions. No, I think they will, if they do anything, just make a smart watch that will integrate with an iPhone. Possibly display incoming caller IDs, SMS/iMessage notifications, and the like. And that's a smart move, because not everyone can work glasses into their daily routine, especially those of us who do not wear glasses to start with. But anyone can wear a watch.

Like Aurich, I like classy watches, but unlike him, I don't own one. I wouldn't wear a wristwatch; I personally think they're all tacky. I don't like how they make my wrist feel. Quit wearing one 15 months ago and never looked back. I want a pocketwatch, ideally with the design of the Time Lords' chameleon fobwatch, like in this scene (warning: Tenth Doctor spoilers), but with a 24-hour clock face. And those are rare in wall clocks. I'm not sure they exist in pocket watches. But that's what I want.

It could end up being a replacement or upscaled version of the iPod shuffle. The main selling point of the shuffle is that it's easy to bring with you while your working out, running, etc ... The issue with the shuffle is that it really only makes sense if you're already in the Apple ecosystem. If you've just got a bunch of mp3s from wherever, then the shuffle isn't all that compelling in comparison to other small basic mp3 players.

It's also really cheap, so there's that, but I'm sure Apple would like to make something suitable for the sort of thing you'd have a shuffle for, but more advanced ... and therefore more expensive and compelling. A watch running iOS could very well do that.

I'm not surprised. If you go to the Lounge you can see how excited people are about their Pebble Watch, IMO some sort of Smartwatch will be the next gadget that will explode.

Smartwatches have been around for a while - Timex released one that would control your iPod 6 years ago. Never heard of it? No surprise, it looked like shit.

Watches are basically jewelry, esepcially for men, since they're one of the few forms of male jewelry that's socially acceptable outside certain niches. Outside geek circles I can't see a massive amount of interest in wearing the same watch as everyone else.

Tablet PC's have been out since at least the 90's yet they've only become popular in the past few years. Ever heard of Newton? It's only recently that technology has advanced far enough to make a tablet a usable product. Only recently have computers become fast and small enough to fit in a tablet, that battery life has become powerful enough to run a working computer in such small form factor and that screen technology has advanced enough to give us small high resolution screens.

Smart watches are nearing the stage where technology will allow them to prosper. My bet is that Timex watch didn't last a day without needing re-charging, right? The Sony Smartwatch needs to be recharged daily. Watches need to be able to last at least a week, preferably a month between charges. Watches also need to be small, much smaller then cell phones. As soon as a long-lasting small smartwatch appears it'll be the new rage, mark my words.

I agree technology is a major factor, but I think you have to give credit for execution too. For example, Apple finally got it right with the iPad, (it's selling like hot cakes, no matter what the techies say) while it looks like Microsoft is pretty much making all the same mistakes that they did in the 90s.

I think I'll have to pass on this one. I'm a student and I like the nightlife of the city I live in and with the noise in each environment, it's hard enough to hear with my phone squished up against my ear let alone in speakerphone mode. This watch, if it does come with cell phone features, will be hard to hear in noisy environments, not to mention you'll look more ridiculous than using a Bluetooth headset with your current phone (hint: try licking your elbow).

I have been an Android user for a long time but it they get it right, I will be happy to switch ti iOS. I am not looking for a watch to read and reply texts and emails on. I want something that will also be a fitness device (e.g. with pedometer, runkeeper features etc) that will sync to the phone